Legal Research On The Development Of The International Investment Law Under GATS

Closely linked, trade and investment are both conducive to the economic development. On the one hand, as a primary way in providing goods and service for overseas market and a main factor in organizing international production, foreign direct investment is increasingly influencing the scale, direction and structure of international trade; on the other, trade gives various impacts on the scale, direction and structure of the foreign direct investment. Even then, for a long period of time the international community has not established a set of effective legal mechanism on the coordination in policy and legislation between trade and investment. No matter on the level of international or domestic legislation, they are relatively independent from each other. As a result, the two sets of policies can barely coordinate and support each other, and the two sets of legislations can hardly cooperate to meet the demand of global economic integration. The enactment and inurement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements fits in well with the trend and demand. The WTO Agreement contains large amount of international investment regulation, and it is a big stride for the international investment law, which is seriously lack of substantive and procedural multilateral regulation. As an important part of it, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) prescribes general principles and specific provisions for the international investment law in trade in service. According to the definition of trade in service given by GATS, Commercial Presence, as one of the four ways of service offerings, is more conducive to the administration and development of the host country and can objectively promote the development of this kind of service offering. The acceleration of commercial presence in service by GATS is undoubtedly the acceleration to international direct investment. The author contends that the enactment of GATS makes international investment law more enriched, the regulating mechanism of international investment law increasingly multilateral and global, and the content of it more uncontrolled. The enactment and inurement of GATS is a significant milestone in the history of international trade law in service and has direct impact for international investment in service. Therefore, studying on the influence of the GATS regulation from the regard of investment law not only is a brand-new perspective, but bears strong significance for China who is already a member of WTO. This article is divided into 4 chapters. Chapter One is about the current situation and plight of the international investment law, introduces the new position and features in the field of international investment under the background of economic globalization and points out the deficiency and limitation of it. Chapter Two discusses international trade in service and GATS. Firstly the general review about international trade in service is given, secondly the birth and basic structure of GATS are discussed and the significance of GATS is deeply analyzed, and finally the connecting point between trade in service and international investment is found out. The previous chapters given, Chapter Three naturally comes. It is the theme part of the whole article, and deals collectively with the discussion of the promotion and development of the international investment law by GATS from 6 main aspects of most-favored-nation treatment, transparency, domestic regulations, economic integration, market access and national treatment. Through these general obligations and disciplines and specific commitments, the author thinks GATS promotes the international investment law to develop in a large scope and to a great extent. Finally in Chapter Four, the author gives a detailed discussion about the influence on the international investment law imposed by GATS, and brings forward his own opinion and advice on China's countermeasures.